


All The Untested Virtue

by HawthorneWhisperer



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: F/M, Friends With Benefits
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-03
Updated: 2017-03-03
Packaged: 2018-09-28 00:39:27
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,854
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10059599
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HawthorneWhisperer/pseuds/HawthorneWhisperer
Summary: Bellamy and Clarke were friends with benefits.Until suddenly one day, they weren't.





	

**Author's Note:**

> tbh, it's a pretty light M.

In a way, Bellamy was Clarke’s longest-standing relationship.  It started by accident five years ago, when she was still boiling mad at Finn and he’d just broken up with Echo for the third and final time.  They were coworkers just on the edge of being friends back then, and a few bitter laughs while working late one night had led to her fucking him on his desk chair, his fingertips digging into her hips.  After that, it became a semi-regular thing whenever they were single at the same time, and over the years they had coalesced into something else entirely.  She had a key to his apartment—  _ so I don’t have to get out of bed and let your ass in when you want a booty call,  _ he’d laughed— and he had a key to hers thanks to the week she had the flu and couldn’t get out of bed.  (That was the week they officially became friends and now she couldn’t even remember what it was like to not have him in her life.)

Clarke climbed the steps to Bellamy’s place and realized she hadn’t been here in months— not alone, anyway.  She’d come over with Miller for beer and sympathy the week after Gina broke up with him, and she’d swung by for dinner with him and Octavia a month or so later, but this was the first time since the day two years ago when she helped him redecorate Miller’s room that she had been over on her own.  (Miller had moved in with Monty and Bellamy decided not to get a new roommate, so Clarke had taken charge of turning Miller’s bedroom into a cozy study.  That had ended with her riding him on the floor with books littered around them, her heart twisting strangely when she looked into his dark brown eyes.  

She’d met Lexa a week later.

Her break-up with Lexa last year had been terrible and Bellamy had been her rock through it all, but even if she  _ could  _ have imagined having sex with someone when she was finally healed, by then he was with Gina.  But that ended six months ago, and tonight Clarke had been boredly scrolling through her favorite porn sites when she realized she didn’t just want to get off— she wanted to get off with  _ him _ .  He’d taken almost an hour to respond to her text, but once he did she threw on a nicer bra and a tighter shirt and headed out.  She had spent most of her walk over imagining what they were going to do first— she was torn between going down on him until he begged her to stop or just kissing him until her lips were buzzing— and her panties were already uncomfortably damp by the time she put her key in the lock.

To her surprise, Bellamy wasn’t by the door when she entered.  He was laying on the couch with a pile of client folders next to him, one open on his chest.  “Don’t get up on my account,” she deadpanned and kicked off her shoes.

Bellamy sat up and closed the file but his expression was strange— closed off, almost cold.   _ I can change that _ .  She knew what he got like when working on a difficult case, and she knew exactly what he needed to take his mind off of it.  Clarke sauntered towards him and he rested his elbows on his knees, looking down at his feet instead of at the way her hips were swaying.  “I’ve been thinking,” he said, and she clicked her tongue.

“I’m not here for us to think,” she purred, but something felt wrong.  He was fidgety and looking anywhere  _ but _ her, which wasn’t like him.  She peeled her shirt off— he loved her tits— and stepped between his feet, but he stood up abruptly and she fell a half-step backwards.

“Clarke, no,” he said and moved away.  He wasn’t looking at her at all, and a waterfall of ice crashed through her chest.  “We need to talk, and not— not like that.”

“You could have said so before I took my clothes off,” she snapped.  She felt naked, and not just because her shirt was still dangling from her fingertips.  This wasn’t a Bellamy she recognized, cold and distant.  She tugged her shirt back on but the feeling of exposure lingered.

“I tried,” he snapped back, and suddenly, it was like their first year out of law school all over again— he clenched his jaw and she folded her arms across her chest and lifted her chin, except it was all wrong.  He was her  _ best friend  _ now, not the jackass who thought she got her job based on her last name.  She loved him and he loved her and sometimes they fucked, but now he was looking at her like he didn’t even know her.  “I don’t want to do this anymore,” he said and fixed his gaze somewhere three inches above and to the left of her eyeline.

“Got it,” she said, her voice steady even though her vision seemed to be blurring.  “Say no more.”  Clarke shoved her feet back into her shoes and she heard him sigh behind her.

“Not like that,” he said, but the feeling of humiliation was mounting inside of her and she had to get out before she did something embarrassing, like bursting into tears.  She’d cried in front of Bellamy before, of course, but not like this.  Not because of  _ him. _   She opened the door and strode out, hearing it bounce off his foot as Bellamy chased her into the hall.  “Clarke, please, I just want to talk,” he said.

“And I don’t,” she said over her shoulder.  Just that glance was enough to crack something deep inside of her, so she let his pleas fall on deaf ears while she thundered down the stairs.  He didn’t follow her outside, and the fall air slapped her heated cheeks as she stormed away from his building, her hands deep in her pockets.

She made it two blocks before the first tear fell.

 

* * *

 

“Then Blake, you’ll be second chair on the Sterling case, and Griffin, I want a word,” Roan said and dismissed the rest of the office.  This was normally when Bellamy would throw her a sympathetic look, but he just turned and walked out.  Which was better than fighting with her— as they had done for the first half of the meeting— but still, it made her miserable.  And getting yelled at by her boss-slash-friend wasn’t going to help things.  Outside, the storm pounded against the windows, thunder rumbling and lightning flashing every so often.  It fit her mood, at least.

Roan waited until the door closed before saying anything else.  “What the fuck, Clarke?”

“Oh, so now I’m Clarke, not Griffin?” she snapped.  Usually she and Roan could navigate the shift between we-sort-of-grew-up-together and you’re-my-boss without a hitch, but she was off her game in all sorts of ways lately.

Roan rolled his eyes.  “You and Blake haven’t fought like that in years, and now you’re acting like you want to murder each other just for spite.  What the fuck is happening?”

“We had a fight,” she mumbled.

“Yeah, no shit.”  He leaned his hip against the desk and watched her for a second before shaking his head.  “Whatever it is, you guys should try and work this out,” he said with just a hint of gentleness.  “And I’m saying this as your boss and your friend, okay?”

“We’re not friends.”

“You broke my sega when I was eleven, we’re friends,” Roan said, a smile playing at the corners of his mouth.

“I was barely in preschool,” she argued, but a little of the tension seemed to drain away.  “Can I go now?”

Roan gestured toward the door.  “Talk to him,” he repeated, and she waved him away.

* * *

 

Bellamy left every day between 5:00 and 5:15, so Clarke waited until 5:45 just to be safe.  Roan’s advice was ringing in her ears but she wasn’t ready— not yet.  She walked to the elevator bank and hit the call button, watching the numbers tick up.  The elevator was still ten flights away when Bellamy walked up next to her and hesitated.  Clarke pulled out her phone and pretended she didn’t see him, which was petty, but then he did the same and she felt simultaneously vindicated and hurt.  The elevator dinged open and they stepped on without looking at each other.  The doors started to close, but then a hand reached out and stopped them.

Both of them looked up to see Roan looking both amused and disgruntled.  “Never mind, I’ll catch the next one,” he said pointedly, and out of the corner of her eye Clarke saw Bellamy shoot him a dirty look.

Two flights down, the elevator shuddered and Clarke instinctively looked over at Bellamy.  He did the same, confusion flashing on his face before it was replaced by something unreadable as the descent resumed.

They had just passed the tenth story when the elevator shuddered again, and then again.  The lights flickered off and the elevator slammed to a stop.  “What the—” Bellamy started, and then the lights came back on but the elevator stayed where it was.  Clarke went to pry the doors open but all she found was concrete.

They were stuck.

“No.  No fucking way,” Bellamy said and his phone was already pressed to his ear.  “The elevator’s stuck,” he snapped.

Clarke could hear Roan’s sigh through the phone, but the rest of his words were inaudible.  

“Then call someone, we’re stuck,” Bellamy ordered.  He paused, and then scrubbed a hand across his face.  “Call me as soon as you talk to the fire department,” Bellamy said and hung up.  

It hurt, seeing him that disgusted at spending time with her.  Just a couple of weeks ago this would have been nothing; a chance to catch up without being accused of blocking the coffee maker.  But now it felt like marching into battle already wounded.  “What the fuck?” she blurted.

Bellamy looked up like he’d been slapped.  “What?”

“What the fuck happened?  We went from friends to...this,” she said, throwing her hands up wildly.  “Was the sex that bad?  Because I’m pretty sure I remember it differently.”  What she remembered, to be accurate, was Bellamy begging her to  _ keep going, don’t stop, never stop  _ while his hands roamed her skin.  Memories she didn’t realize she cherished until they were tainted by his disdain.

“That’s on you, princess,” he snarled.  “I wanted to talk.  You were the one who ran away.”

“I left because you couldn’t even  _ look  _ at me,” she spat.  “Do you know how that feels?”

Bellamy laughed, but it was an angry, dark sound.  “I do, actually.  Because you haven’t looked at me except to bark orders at me for the past two weeks.”

“Right, because you’ve been so kind and understanding to me.”  

Bellamy’s phone rang and he answered it without looking.  “What?  Are you kidding me?  No, I’ve got it,” he said and then hung up again.  “It’ll be a fucking hour.  Roan really put the screws to the fire department for this one.”

“Yeah, that’s definitely his fault.  What’s your deal, Bellamy?”

“Nothing.  Sorry, didn’t mean to hurt his feelings.”

Clarke screeched in aggravation.  “Goddammit, Bellamy, what the fuck is going on?  One minute we’re fine, and the next we’re— this.  If you hated having sex with me so much you should have just fucking said so.”

“I didn’t— I didn’t hate that,” he said and looked away.  “That wasn’t it.  That wasn’t it at all.”

“Then what the fuck was it?”

“Nothing.”

“It’s not nothing.”

“It’s nothing,” he repeated and turned to face her.

“It’s not,” she half-shouted.  “It’s not nothing, so what is it?”

“It’s because I love you, okay?” He hurled the words at her with such force Clarke stepped back.  Bellamy’s hands went into his hair and he turned away, but not before she caught a gleam of wetness in his eyes.  “Goddammit,” he whispered, and his hand came up in a fist like he was going to punch the elevator wall, but in the end he just rested it there, his head hanging down.  “I love you,” he muttered with his back to her. “I love you, so I can’t do that.  Not anymore, not when— not when it wouldn’t mean to you what it means to me.”

Clarke’s knees went weak and she leaned back against the opposite wall.   _ I love you _ , he’d just said, and that— that wasn’t possible.  She knew it wasn’t, and that’s why she’d left the day they had sex on the floor of the study.

Because that day, it was different.  There was something soft and warm in her chest, bubbling and hopeful and growing stronger with every touch of his fingers.  But that’s not what they were, so she told herself she was imagining it, that he  _ wasn’t  _ looking at her differently, that he didn’t seem reluctant to let her out of his arms.  And with the rush of falling in love with Lexa so soon after, she believed it, especially once he was with Gina.  She saw him with someone he loved and she knew he had never looked at her like that, so she chalked that afternoon up to an aberration and moved on.  But now— now she wondered if she’d missed something.  She sank down to the floor, speechless.

Bellamy looked at her over his shoulder and looked away again, but then he turned to face her and crouched down.  “I’m sorry,” he said, and all the anger was gone.  He reached out, like he was going to take her hand, but then stopped.  “I didn’t want you to find out like this.  I never meant for any of this to happen.”

“How long?” she managed around the lump in her throat.  The world was spinning in slow motion and in double time, because  _ Bellamy loved her _ .

“I don’t know,” he sighed.  “Long enough.  Probably longer than I think I realized.”

“Since the last time?”

Bellamy made eye contact with her and swallowed.  “Maybe.  I think then I thought— I thought we might be something more.  But then…”

“Then Lexa happened.”

The corner of his mouth twitched a little.  “Then Lexa happened,” he agreed.  “And then I met Gina and I thought it was over, but then Gina left and I just...god, one day I just...knew.”

“That you loved me,” she said, because she needed to hear him say it again.

Bellamy’s eyes fluttered closed, like it hurt him to look at her.  “Yeah.  That I loved you.  And I didn’t want you to feel pressured, or weird, or—  I didn’t want any of this, but you were so angry and I thought...I thought it might be better if you hated me.  Easier, somehow.”

“Then you messed up,” she said, and when he opened his eyes she wondered if she would ever get tired of looking at them.  They were so dark and inviting, warm and deep and loving.  “Because I never hated you.”

Bellamy snorted.  “Did you just use a line from  _ Ten Things I Hate About You _ on me?”

“Maybe.”

“And just to clarify, I’m the Kat Stratford in this scenario?”

“Yes,” she said, and they both smiled.  “But I mean it, Bellamy.  I didn’t hate you, I was just—” she broke off and searched his face, trying to find the right words.  But she didn’t have his way with them, and with Bellamy, she never felt like she really needed them.  

So she did what made the most sense, and leaned forward to kiss him.

Bellamy didn’t respond at first, frozen in place, and then when he did his kiss was hesitant and halting.  “Clarke, I—” he said, breaking away.

_ Words it is, then _ .  “I love you too,” she said, and it was odd how she had never really allowed herself to even think those words before, but now they felt right, like she’d always known and just needed the courage to say so.  “I don’t know for how long either, but I do.  I love you,” she said, and this time, he kissed her.

Roan would be all kinds of pissed to find out she’d fucked Bellamy in the elevator, but none of that mattered once Bellamy shifted and drew her into his lap.  She wanted him and he wanted her and there wasn’t any more bullshit standing in their way, so they weren’t going to let a thing like that stop them.  But she couldn’t stop smiling and neither could he, and the rugburn she got on her knees was more than worth it to feel him inside of her again.  By the time the fire department came to help them out they were redressed, trading kisses and laughing.  He came home with her that night, and when the arrived at work together the next morning Roan cast her an amused smirk, but nothing could puncture her bubble of happiness.

**Author's Note:**

> From an anon prompt for Clarke pushes Bellamy for something physical, but he can't do it because he can't be casual.
> 
> Title from Mess by Ben Folds Five.


End file.
